When it comes to exercise, I occasionally get knocked off the rails. I'll be steaming along at an ever-improving pace, maintaining weight, hardening my body and increasing my general level of fitness when all of the sudden a collision forces me off the track. As I look back I can identify several interruptions of this sort - new babies, relocations, changes in work schedule, illness or injury, the conclusion of a long-planned race. If I don't quickly bring out the pulleys and levers to get myself set back aright, I settle into the mud, making the restart all the more difficult.
In my most recent post I told of my family's struggle with illness last week. As the week progressed and I remained unaffected, I began to feel immune, but I wasn't. Friday evening I was enjoying fine wine and a cigar (uncharacteristic for me, but I was marketing) with some European clients at a posh private club (not my own), feeling pretty good about myself in the moment. A couple of hours after I got home, I woke up with aches and chills and spent the rest of the night trying to convince myself that I wasn't really sick.
By the time Saturday morning arrived, I could no longer deny that I had succumbed to the virus. I arranged for another parent to coach my son's soccer team, wrapped myself in a blanket, lay on the couch and watched college football, drifting in and out of sleep for the next 15 hours or so.
The virus seemed an appropriate physiological manifestation of other things that had plagued me in the week. My car rolled off warranty last year, and so of course I've spent too much time this year carting it to and from the shop. I paid a huge repair bill last month, and last week was told I'd have to pay another one - approaching the value of the car itself. My wife's car appears to be giving up the ghost at about the same time. My son needs expensive medicine that the insurance company won't pay for, so I spent too much time battling with unthinking, uncompassionate bureaucrats. All that on top of the normal issues in a family with young kids - temper tantrums, homework, sibling squabbles. All the while, my work obligations pound like a drumbeat in the background. Saturday morning wasn't the first time last week that I felt like wrapping myself in a blanket and lying on the couch, just the first time I could justify it.
The fever finally relented Monday night and I was able to make it to soccer practice and enjoy some time with the boys. Barring a rainout this weekend, it was our last practice so I wanted to make it fun, and I think it was. I finally felt up to running around a bit myself, so the other coaches and I took on the team and taught them a bit about passing and moving into open space.
Tuesdays are normally my wife's morning to run, but she had kid-related obligations this morning, so I took advantage of the opportunity to get outside. I'm still a little weak, my throat is a tad sore, and I've got dead legs, but it was time to start assembling the pulleys and levers. I took my ipod and set it on "shuffle", which is always an adventure for someone with my eclectic musical tastes. As I climbed the big hill, the violins in Barber's Adagio for Strings were screeching to a crescendo. It was an appropriate (if a bit overly dramatic) selection given the effort it took me to reach the top.
At the half way point of my run I noted that I was well short of my normal pace, but I expected that. For the balance of the second loop I just enjoyed the run, forgot about my time and reflected on recent circumstances in general. I am prone to pessimism, and tend to lose perspective when I hit bumps in the road. Exercise is not the only activity in which I can get knocked off the rails. Running seems to calibrate my emotions a bit, and allow me to see things as they are, rather than as I fear them to be.
As I reached the hill on my second lap my ipod randomly selected the less apt "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" by James Taylor. I love a lot of James Taylor's stuff, but it's not the best workout music. I create my own playlists for workouts sometimes, but that takes away the element of surprise. Sometimes I wish my ipod were a little more attuned to what I am doing.
As I crested the hill and descended the back side with a little less spring in my step than usual, I recognized that I would reach my destination, just not as quickly or in the manner that I had hoped. So also our family will come up with the resources to fix or replace our cars, we'll get the medicine our son needs, we'll all recover from this virus, and we'll absorb the challenges still to come. I believe we serve a God who is mindful of and compassionate concerning our circumstances, and that there are mercies abundant even in the challenges. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of those truths before I spend too much time off the rails and settle deeply into the mud.
Perhaps the randomly selected James Taylor song was more apt than I initially thought, and maybe it wasn't so random.
